GIPF increases benefits to members

The Government Institutions Pension Fund (GIPF) this week announced an increase in pension and disability benefits to members after the fund’s assets grew to a staggering N$61 billion at the end of February.The GIPF Board of Trustees increased the disability income by 8% backdated to 01 April 2012 in line with an 8% salary adjustment for civil servants last year while members received an inflationary adjusted pension income of 6.5%. The increase is effective from 01 April 2013.Announcing the increases on Wednesday, GIPF CEO, David Nuyoma said the positive financial position of the fund is meaningless if it does not translate into accrual benefits to membersNuyoma said: “It is important to mention that the increase of pension income is granted on the basis of the assessment of the fund’s financial performance as well as in line with the fund’s strategy to protect pensioner’s income from the ravages of inflation. Similarly, the decision of the trustees to award an 8% increase on disability income was in correspondence to the average salary increase given to civil servants, following a salary agreement between NAPWU and the government.” The increase in disability and pension income, comes shortly after the fund announced increases and changes to benefits for deceased members early this year. In January, benefits for members who were still in active service were increased to N$8000 up from the previous N$5000 while members who die after retiring will also receive the same amount. The latter increase came as a relief to retired members who previously did not enjoy any funeral benefits from the fund.Other changes introduced also saw the deceased spouse of a member getting N$8000 in benefits up from N$5000. A deceased member’s child above one year now gets N$3000 from the previous N$1000 while a member’s child below the age of one will get N$1000, a 100% increase from the previous amount of N$500, the same as a member’s still born child.